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Transcript

Sounds of Summer: Didgeridoo industry

The World Today - Wednesday, 15 January , 2003 00:00:00

Reporter: Anne Barker

HAMISH ROBERTSON: They've been around for thousands of years, but it's only in the past decade or two that didgeridoos have become a prized global commodity.

Across northern Australia and overseas, the didgeridoo has replaced the boomerang as perhaps the hottest Aboriginal artefact on the market. But as demand for didgeridoos booms, increasingly non-Aboriginal people are controlling that market, as well as cutting, making and painting the instruments with little if any input from indigenous artists.

So much so, in fact, that Aboriginal people in Australia's traditional didgeridoo country fear they've all but lost ownership of this ancient cultural icon.

Anne Barker now reports on their quest to reclaim the didgeridoo.

[didgeridoo music]

NICK DICANDILO: The exportation level of didgeridoos in the Top End I think is extremely high. There seem to be more non-Aboriginal people harvesting didgeridoos than Aboriginal people.

[didgeridoo music]

VERONICA BIRRELL: Some European people are, blokes they sit with a, with an Aboriginal person and they watch how he do, he does the paintings, you know. How he draws his bird or whatever, his animal, and do their art. I know of one bloke who, who's done that and he's, um, and he's now being recognised everywhere for his art work.

[didgeridoo music]

COCO WILLIAMS: There's people making in any culture, in any religion in the world, there's people making and using many cultures. There's probably somebody in Australia making concrete Buddhas.

[didgeridoo music]

ANNE BARKER: For thousands of years, the didgeridoo has been a cultural instrument in traditional Aboriginal ceremonies, used only on special occasions such as funerals or to mark a boy's passage to manhood. But in the last few decades, the didgeridoo's importance as a cultural artefact has been overtaken by its monetary value in a booming, global market.

[market sounds]

GLEN BIRD: Yeah, basically when people come here, I try and do a bit of, I give 'em a five minute talk, I give 'em a bit of history about, this is an Aboriginal map of Australia.

ANNE BARKER: Aboriginal leaders now fear they've lost control and ownership of the didgeridoo to an industry dominated by white men, many of whom they say have little respect for its ancient traditions.

GLEN BIRD: And the didgeridoo only come from a certain latitude there and it's to do with termites.

ANNE BARKER: The town of Katherine in the Top End is in the heart of Australia's didgeridoo country which stretches from the tip of eastern Arnhem Land right down to Western Australia. It's the only region in the world where termites hollow-out eucalypt trees to create a natural product.

[didgeridoo music]

Here, off Katherine's main street, Coco Williams is one of several retailers selling didgeridoos to tourists.

COCO WILLIAMS: And then I explain about Arnhem Land-style art work. Didgeridoos is, the real art work for it is line work.

[didgeridoo music]

ANNE BARKER: But unlike in many traditional communities nearby, Coco Williams happily admits most of his didgeridoos aren't the real thing.

COCO WILLIAMS: All these ones with the varnish and the wood finish, I make them. And I don't try and make out that I'm Aboriginal. I just say, listen, I make them as a musical instrument. I do, I make 'em in the best white man way possible with technology. I use it because …

ANNE BARKER: How do you think they compare to the traditional thing?

COCO WILLIAMS: Well, basically I make them but I don't make the inside of them, which is nature. It's very easy to go and get 500 pieces of wood, in any country, drill a hole in it. Basically you got a didgeridoo and get someone who's a bit smart and he can paint an Aboriginal design on it, and …

ANNE BARKER: So does it matter if didgeridoos don't come from traditional communities? Even though it might have been …

COCO WILLIAMS: I think …

ANNE BARKER: Once a traditional artefact?

COCO WILLIAMS: I think it's a nice thing. It makes the world aware of Aboriginal people. So it's great that it goes around the world.

[didgeridoo "talking"]

ANNE BARKER: Not far from Katherine in the Northern Territory is the indigenous community of Wugularr, the home of perhaps Australia's greatest didgeridoo master, Old Man Blanasi who died a few months ago. His skill in imitating the sounds of the bush, even the kookaburras, is surpassed by none.

[didgeridoo "talking"]

ANNE BARKER: Blanasi's countrymen at Wugularr still cut and harvest didgeridoos according to tradition.

[harvesting didgeridoos]

ANNE BARKER: Looking for trees eaten by termites, tapping them to check they're hollow, then cutting the stems and stripping the bark.

[harvesting didgeridoos]

ANNE BARKER: But as the didgeridoo industry expands and demand increasingly outstrips supply, the axe has given way to chainsaws.

[chainsaws]

ANNE BARKER: And illegal harvesting has become rampant.

JOSH FORNER: A lot of the traditional harvesters have noticed non-traditional harvesters entering their land and also in places that aren't their land and taking a lot of trees in a way that they wouldn't normally do. And they were a bit upset about the situation.

ANNE BARKER: Josh Forner at the Tropical Centre for Wildlife Management has joined forces with the Jawoyn Association which represents communities like Wugularr to improve their management of timber resources.

How much timber is being taken illegally?

JOSH FORNER: It's very difficult to say how much is taken illegally. There's, there are virtually no figures on the number of trees being taken. But a small section of land that I surveyed last year, about one in five trees had branches taken from them.

There's one community nearby where there's a couple of guys that will come and go. And sometimes they'll harvest. But the majority of the harvesting, it's likely to be non-indigenous people from all over the place.

ANNE BARKER: How easy is it to go in and just poach timber that's suitable for a didgeridoo?

JOSH FORNER: Oh, it's quite easy if you, if you've a little bit of experience. Perhaps if you, if you a couple of Aboriginal people, they'd have showed you which trees they use and how to find some good ones. Buy a chainsaw, get a four-wheel drive and you're pretty much on your way.

A lot of harvesters, while they don't know how to pick a good hollow sometimes, they will just cut the tree down and if the hollow's not developed enough, they'll either just simply discard it. But some of the other harvesters have some sophisticated equipment that'll, you know, help them hollow out a long straight piece of wood, so they can make do.

[chainsaw]

VERONICA BIRRELL: Really, we don't see much of that, but, um, it's because it's all done during, you know, some ungodly hours. But I know that, you know, like we've seen vehicles drive past with the didgs at the back, on the back of the, um, tray back, and all the trailers is just chock-a-block.

ANNE BARKER: Veronica Birrell runs the craft shop at Wugularr where over-harvesting or downright poaching by non-indigenous people is a growing problem.

VERONICA BIRRELL: They were gonna set up a roadblock one time and I think one day their, one of the vehicles got a flat tyre and they just drove straight past and they felt like, they reckon they just felt like cutting the ropes and making all the didgs fall down. And then, they know it's happening, but you know, they just usually can't really do anything about it.

ANNE BARKER: So they come out in the middle of the night?

VERONICA BIRRELL: Mmm. There's always someone's awake during the night and then they see what vehicles go past, and what happens in the, during the night.

ANNE BARKER: So what do the Jawoyn people generally, or people from your community, do when they suspect this sort of thing's going on?

VERONICA BIRRELL: Well, what usually happens is they come and tell me and then I put it towards the council and then usually it's the TEO who continues with it. Like to inform the police and all of that.

ANNE BARKER: Non-Aboriginal harvesters are allowed to take didgeridoo stems from traditional land if they have a permit from the Parks and Wildlife Service. Last year, the service granted permits for 5,000 sticks, yet tens of thousands of didgeridoos were sold in the Territory alone.

Parks and Wildlife officer, Helen Puckey, admits the permit system is widely abused.

HELEN PUCKEY: There is a vast difference between the numbers of permits we're issuing and the numbers of didgeridoos that are being sold, yes.

ANNE BARKER: How much do you know about the people that are selling those extra didgeridoos? Where they're coming from and who they are?

HELEN PUCKEY: Well, that's the difficult thing. There's a huge area from which you can harvest good didgeridoos. And there's a lot of harvesters out there, both commercial and indigenous. And there's a few people regulating that on the ground. So it's very difficult to know where those harvests are occurring and who it is.

But certainly we have leads on where we might be able to start tracking down. From the art sellers themselves that are, we can track through records of what they've purchased, where their sticks are coming from and that sort of thing. But it's still a difficult game.

JOSH FORNER: I'd say the majority of didgeridoos are harvested without a permit. Simply by the fact that Parks and Wildlife permits every year average about 1500 and a didgeridoo shop in Darwin could sell between five and 10 thousand a year.

ANNE BARKER: So most of didgeridoos on sale in Australia, you think, are made from illegally harvested timber?

JOSH FORNER: Yeah, depending on the regulations in different states. But in the Northern Territory, I'd say that most of the harvesting is done without a permit.

ANNE BARKER: Is that because demand is just increasing so quickly?

JOSH FORNER: Yeah, I think the industry is just so far ahead of the management. So yeah, there's a huge demand and people have just got a great market.

ANNE BARKER: All of which has led to calls to review the permit system to give indigenous people more power to control harvesting on their own land. Nick Decandilo [phonetic] from the Jawoyn Association is one of those passionate about the need for reform.

NICK DECANDILO: Certainly in the Katherine region, there are many non-Aboriginal people that may have a permit and they over-harvest. I mean a permit may be worth a couple of hundred didgeridoos.

And they make agreements with pastoralists and they make agreements with some Aboriginal people who, you know, see the way to a quick dollar as well. And go in and they harvest and harvest probably thousands at a time.

ANNE BARKER: Who would hold those permits?

NICK DECANDILO: With the permit system, I mean, because of the importance of the didgeridoo to Aboriginal people and the way that it can bring money back into Aboriginal people's pockets, I think permits should either be controlled by Aboriginal people.

And if it's a non-Aboriginal person that is, has a permit, then it should be done in a joint-venture with an Aboriginal person or a community so that some of the money goes back to Aboriginal people.

At the moment I would say less money goes to Aboriginal people than it does to non-Aboriginal people. I think the harvesters make a very good living. The poor old countryman on the ground, I'm not looking for a poor bugger me story here, but countrymen on the ground aren't getting the better end of the deal.

[didgeridoo]

GLEN BIRD: Well, the key to getting a good sound for a customer point of view is I always tell customers that the simple formula is that if it's easier to play, the better the didgeridoo. They've got to think in their minds, think like a horse. Think like a horse. How the horse go, phrr, phrr. And you bite, your lips vibrate, real easy. Phrr, phrr. So this is what I'll sound like, like any beginner. [didgeridoo]

ANNE BARKER: It's not just the didgeridoo timber that traditional communities are struggling to control. At the retail end too, Aboriginal craftsmen are losing out.

GLEN BIRD: The ones I have on sale here are a combination of didgeridoos made by urban Aboriginal people and traditional Aboriginal people. Most urban Aboriginal people will paint with ochre paint that's bought in the shop. And of course all traditional Aboriginal people, community Aboriginal people living in the communities, will nine times out of 10 paint with natural ochre.

ANNE BARKER: Glen Bird in Katherine is one of only a handful of indigenous retailers in Australia who sell traditional didgeridoos cut and painted by Aboriginal craftsmen on their own land. He says for years these artists have been ripped off by non-indigenous retailers who won't pay what they're really worth.

GLEN BIRD: Well, if we're talking about being ripped off then it's not so much the wholesalers that are to blame here. It's more of the retailers which are, which are buying these products at very low cost. The mark-up on didgeridoos has, has, there is a, um, well, in somewhat area, quite substantial difference. At this stage I believe that the pricing structure is very low.

ANNE BARKER: But Veronica Birrell says too often it's the indigenous artists themselves who under value their own product, or see them simply as a means of payment for food, grog or petrol.

VERONICA BIRRELL: I sold a, that old man's didgeridoo about two years ago to a gallery in Darwin for about $120, and I had a squizzy one day, I went into, just for something to have a look, I want into the, into the gallery and had $480 on the, on the price tag.

ANNE BARKER: And what did you think?

VERONICA BIRRELL: Well [laughs], I just mumbled under, you know, I just, I was disgusted. I just walked straight out.

ANNE BARKER: Why don't they sell them at a higher price?

VERONICA BIRRELL: I don't know. Mainly, a lot of 'em, they get cornered into, like in that bargaining system where they, you know, they, um, it end up, the didgeridoo end up being sold at a lower price when they start the bargaining system. Because then they can't, you know, because, usually they can't say "no" because if they want something, like if they want the money to buy something, they'll take whatever they, they've been offered.

ANNE BARKER: But perhaps the biggest loss for many communities is the perceived theft of their traditional designs. The sacred animals and totems that adorn didgeridoos and other art work which are increasingly being copied by white sellers.

VERONICA BIRRELL: Some European people, blokes are painting didgeridoos and it's, you know, what they do is, they sit with a, with an Aboriginal person and they watch how he does the paintings, you know. How he draws his bird or whatever his animal, and do their art. And I know of one bloke who, who's done that and he's um, and he's now being recognised everywhere for his art work.

ANNE BARKER: So the designs themselves might be originally indigenous, but they're being copied.

VERONICA BIRRELL: Yep. And then, you know, some of them, you can, you can, you notice some of them because Aboriginal people sort of like, they don't sort of like do it neat as. You know, there's a couple of little spots where they've make a little mistakes. And I've seen ones that are perfect, you know. Like it's too neat [laughs], so.

ANNE BARKER: Veronica Birrell is the first to agree that Aboriginal people themselves are partly to blame for their own exploitation. For selling their didgeridoos too cheaply or giving away their sacred designs.

But retailers like Coco Williams believe the didgeridoo has long since lost its status as a cultural artefact, and is now the global property of anyone wanting to sell them.

COCO WILLIAMS: The didgeridoo now is for everyone in the music world. It's probably a bit like, this example, say the person who made the first guitar. I don't know really where it was made. But listen, they've made that, as probably is made for some ceremonial reason. It was made all natural.

But now we make 'em out of plastic, there's steel on 'em. People throw them on stage, you know. They don't have respect from where it came. Well, the didgeridoo's like that. It's a traditional thing but it's gone on to, as a musical instrument.

ANNE BARKER: What do you say to the indigenous people who argue that it should be them only that is allowed to cut and paint and market, manufacture didgeridoos?

COCO WILLIAMS: I think that's being romantic. There's people making in any culture, and in any religion in the world, there's people making and using many cultures. There's probably somebody in Austaralia making concrete Buddhas. You know.

Aboriginal people say to me, Paddy Fordham, he's an artist who paints here a lot. He says to me, all this is for the children in the world. This is for everybody to share. So I thought, that's good enough reason for, for me to selling didgeridoos.

[didgeridoo and dancer singing]

ANNE BARKER: The Jawoyn Association and the Parks and Wildlife Service are now looking at the merits of a tagging system similar to the Woolmark label in the textile industry to identify didgeridoos that are authentic.

As the global industry expands, Nick Dicandilo believes more and more consumers are looking for the real thing. Traditional didgeridoos that are cut, painted and sold only by indigenous people on indigenous land.

NICK DICANDILO: I think a lot of didgeridoos in the marketplace are not, are not genuine in the fact that they are cut early, they are drilled, they make a sound, yes. No problem. And a non-discerning buyer would buy that as a token, as an ornament probably more than a playing instrument.

A souvenir is something is not handled by an Aboriginal person I believe. And I think the, the market needs to differentiate between the two.

ANNE BARKER: What can indigenous people do then? What are the Jawoyn people doing at the moment to try and wrest back control of the industry?

NICK DICANDILO: Well, we're attempting to sort of, well, re-educate is not the right word but we are wanting and looking to spend a lot more time with Aboriginal people and tell them the worth of their instrument. Not just to sell it for tobacco, or a quick bit of food, or a bit of grog.

To actually say, well look, if you want my didgeridoo, this is my starting price. And then really to be able to, you know, for countrymen, and Jawoyn people can facilitate this, to try and work as a medium between the galleries, the people selling the end product and those that are manufacturing. And to try and get rid of some of the carpet-bagging within the industry.

[didgeridoo music]

ANNE BARKER: At the end of the day, can you really say that indigenous people have the right to retain control of the industry? When you say it has become a global industry, is it now something that really doesn't belong to indigenous people any more?

NICK DICANDILO: No, I still think, no I still think it belongs to Aboriginal people. In terms of a cultural artefact, it is, you cannot say intellectual copyright, but I'd use the term "cultural artefact" I think. It's the difference between creating an industry where the didgeridoo is an authentic item.

I think we need to go to authentication. Whether it's a limited number of harvested instruments that are tagged and that constitutes a, a genuine article, versus any old didgeridoo you can buy in a shop which doesn't have the tag. And that could be, you know, at a lesser level whereas it could be a souvenir only.

[didgeridoo, clapping sticks and singer]

HAMISH ROBERTSON: That current affairs special was produced and presented by Anne Barker.